Tag: Bree Williamson

TSJ’s last day filming for the show was late July (the 22nd). The entire time I’ve been hoping that TPTB released the information to throw fans off track (much like the ‘Todd’s execution scenes when, I believe, TSJ’s contract was up and TPTB kept us guessing about whether or not he would return. At time moves on, I realize that it’s utterly hopeless to believe that TPTB are playing a waiting game and I realize that RH’s Todd has indeed won out. While I’d preferred having both men onscreen, it’s clear that RH’s Todd had to win out. Bummer, but I accept it will adjust.

Bummer? Yes, bummer. I’ve been adamant that I want TSJ to be declared the ‘real Todd’ while keeping RH’s Todd on as the newly discovered brother brainwashed into believing he was Todd Why? Although it took me a while to warm up to him, I’ve been a huge TSJ supporter since Todd’s “death row” storyline. It’s one of the most ethereal, hauntingly beautiful, storylines OLTL writers have offered. A rapist, who later became a rape survivor, is on death row after being convicted of killing his assailant. I think TSJ added an intangible quality to the role that RH’s Todd didn’t have.

Rather than build on the magnificence of that storyline and send Todd on a journey of introspection, OLTL writers took the opportunity to make Todd meaner, angrier, and more vile with each act -primarily to prop other characters and storylines. TSJ’s Todd was sacrificed to sell Cole and the Starr as a burgeoning supercouple and the writers wasted no time in taking TSJ’s Todd to a new low (battering Cole, knocking a pregnant Starr down a flight of stiars, threatening to kill orphaned adolescents, bullying Starr’s friends, etc).

Todd had become such a heinous character that OLTL writers wasted months creating a new ‘high school musical’ around the “eternal” love of Starr and Cole, with Todd being cast as evil personified. Much of Langston’s play centered around the heartlessness of a man like Todd, who’d lost the ability to recognize and bask in the glow of true love. When an entire town’s collective life revolves around a high schol musical on the glory of teen love/pregnancy as a lesson about love for the ages? Your show and its characters are doomed. I think the show for far too long leveraged its credibility on the backs of its youngest performers (not their fault at all) in the hopes of bringing in newer/younger viewers — and as has always been true of daytime, younger viewers are as uninterested in hot mess storyline about their lives as the rest of us. It didn’t stop TSJ’s Todd from becoming a causalty and beginning the downward spiral toward irrelevance.

Like RH before him, TSJ’s portrayal of the character became one of boredom and he began projecting ‘shorthand’ acting. His responses became quick quips. Facials expressions (plural) became facial expression (singular). The return of Marty Saybrooke was the death of TSJ’s Todd Manning. His struggle for redemption – post Marty’s rape (the first time) was gone. His sad realization that he would never be able to make up to Marty, or the community he offended and terrorized, for his actions was gone. His struggle to forgive himself for what he’d become, was gone.

The writers, I can only guess, felt that they’d found the one sure fire way of giving all of that back to fans. RH’s Todd gets a fresh start. If he becomes ‘Real Todd’, it means that the writers can take us back to the place where we loved the flawed Todd Manning because he would still be struggling with his humanity and his fighting his fear of returing to the sociopath he’d once been (the sociopath TSJ’s Todd was sacrificed to become once again).

Watching Viki with Todd, even I began to long for old Todd. I remembered how instrumental a role Viki played in Todd’s redepmtion and how much closer to human she made him. The few minutes of Viki with the RHTodd’s (the Todd who was allowed to experience human emotions) made me “homesick” and sad that the writers had wasted the gifts that TST brought to the role at the same time. There is something special in RH’s Todd’s relationship with Viki that TSJ’s Todd was never allowed to capture. I felt like an intruder watching Viki watch her baby brother (RH Todd) sleep. The moment felt so real and I could only imagine that in fictional Viki’s shoes that I, too, would long for the brother with a familiar face, a familiar sound and familiar mannerisms.

I get it, because as much as I’ve loved TSJ in the role and for as much as I hope there is a way to bring him back, afterall, I can see the emtional threads of this storyline braiding themselves together to give fans the Todd they’d hoped they would get with TSJ and were disappointed when the writers had other plans. EZ’s Viki and RH’s Todd have the opportunity to bring viewers back to what feels like ‘home’.

Initially, this storyline led me to imagine the Emmy worthy work Erika Slezak would deliver as the emotional heart of the Lord family, torn between two brothers who want to be loved best by her – one who now had everything and one who’d pretty much lost it all. Both brothers would be fearful of being rejected in favor of the other. I thought of the stress and pain it would cause Viki to constantly be asked to choose between them, as it has caused her the same gutwrenching pain she experiences even still with her daughters. Ithought of the comic moments with the two sets of long lost Lord twins, RH-Todd and his favorite, Jess. TSJ -Todd becoming Natalies’s champion. In the end, while both Todds are familiar to Viki, both would be strangers. Now it’s becoming clearer that the writers are going to make a ‘choice’ themselves, and I’m resigned to the fact that their choice won’t be mine and TSJ won’t be back. More is the pity.

Ultimately, it must be hell to work for an ABC soap in a familiar role. From the return of the “Real Greenlee” to the return of RH’s Todd, any actor would probably be smart to consider themselves just a temporary long-term replacement in any ABC soap role.

I posted the comments quoted below in responsible to this: “Serial Drama” blog. I thought I’d post it here for those who haven’t ventured over there yet. Glad to know I’m not alone in being bothered by the excessive make up used to ‘transform’ Not-Emly into Rebecca Shaw… HA!

What’s that about Remily’s make up? Don’t you know that it’s part of ABC daytime’s kit-o-magic? Smoky gray eyes turn NL’s Emily into Rebecca, thick black glasses turn OLTL’s Jessica/Tess into Bess, AMC’s Ryan removes his shirt and we’re not supposed to notice that he’s still an ***. ABC, character transformations… as superficial as the scripts.

I actually posted a blog commenting that paint drying was more interesting than watching most of GH. Now the Nik/Remily scenes. Freudian scriptwriting? Poor GH writers.

Is the last paragraph confusing to you? If so then you’ve probably spent more of your time watching something other than GH, like I have. There is a posted clip at SD of Remily and Prince Nikolas painting a room. Sweet irony… watching paint dry… <sigh> You just can’t make this stuff up!

To that I could add that:

1 – Eyeglasses make you ‘smart’ and even” geekier” if you wear them with tape patching the middle or sides.

2 – Scowling makes you ‘thoughtful’.

3- Black T-shirts, denim, and leather jackets make you

Hot

Mysterious

Dangerous

All of the above

4 – Hair slicked back makes you

Hot

Mysterious

Dangerous

All of the above

The list goes on and on! Oh sure, all soaps do it, but ABC takes prop-acting to a completely different level!

If the spoilers are correct, and Robin is suffering from something OTHER than PPD, it’s possible that my days as a deeply disappointed, incredibly bitter occasional GH viewer are OVAH! GH will be off the viewing list for GOOD for me (or at least until TPTB rebuild Scrubs and LL2). The question is, what is the ‘something other’?

Is it possible that the writers are venturing into a potential ‘DID’ storyline? One Life to Live has successfully carried out the multiple personality storylines with Erika Slezak’s ‘Viki Buchanan Lord’ for decades. They’ve had some success with Bree Williamson in a similar storyline. Could GH writers be looking to reproduce that success with Robin Scorpio Drake?

For pity’s sake! Robin has survived more tragedy than most characters in daytime. If the writers are adding DID on top of her HIV, PPD, and general life dissatisfaction, I think I’m truly done with this show.

How much darker can GH get? The phrase once used was ‘would the last viewer out please shut off the lights?’… I think it’s time for the last GH viewer out to turn the LIGHTS ON.